behind the times

[darkoshi]

I still haven't yet used or installed Zoom. However, one of Qiao's nieces is having a Zoom wedding event in a few weeks (they already married a few months ago, but for some reason the virtual event ended up being scheduled for later...), so I'll probably get to try it out then. But I keep thinking "virtual event = I can watch online", forgetting the "Zoom = they can watch me too" part. I guess that means I should dress up a bit, or something? And that maybe it will be a bunch of individual conversations between people I mostly don't know, and it will feel like a real live social event where I just sit quietly listening to people talk? Although with his family, it will probably be a ton of people, so I don't even know how individual conversations could work. Maybe it will be a few people speaking and everyone else listening. I suppose I should get Zoom working on Qiao's laptop, so he can join and I can just look over his shoulder now and then. Hmmm. I wonder if his laptop even has a webcam?

For work, I've still only ever had one video call this last year.

I still haven't tried out any video chat apps on my phone. My mom tried out Google Duo a week or two ago, with her friend. When she'd mentioned wanting to try out a video chat app, I'd almost installed Google Duo on my phone, but upon seeing the permissions page I decided to wait, as I wanted to look into other options first. But really, I don't have any particular urge to video chat with anyone. That's why I don't get around to it.

I used video chat on my computer about 15 years ago, with Qiao on Yahoo Instant Messenger. And with my brother on Facebook once long ago.

Skype used to be a thing. I installed it on my computer to try out, but don't remember ever using it with anyone else. At work, we used Skype, but for texting, not video.

Comments

[frith]

I'm not a Zoom fan but I had to use it twice. You'll have to update Firefox to something recent or sound won't work. If you have marginally slow bandwidth (mine is about 5x dial-up), video of you will slow down to 1 frame every 20 seconds at their end while at your end you will see them OK with few pauses.

Now, appearance. Sure, dress up, why not, but think full frame. Zoom allows you to have an artificial background, maybe you can make your own (I do not know). Look that up, choose a primary colour you like, maybe have a selection of backgrounds you can switch between. Be craftier, plot with other Zoomers so you all have different and punchy background colours... like a Zoom quilt.

[darkoshi]

When I watch videos of other people, I rather like seeing what their room looks like in the background. But yes, in that one video chat we had for work, a few people were using fake backgrounds and I wanted to try it out too. But from what I found out later, I didn't have the right version of the MS Teams software for it.